Since coming to power 18 months ago, the Tories have made the social services a number one target. Hesaltine's latest decision to slash the rate support grant - announced on December 16 - will add yet another nail to ine conn.
Cutting the rate support grant will mean compulsory teacher redundancies, larger classes and fewer college places. It will mean - as applied to the health service - further hospital closThe cutbacks planned in housing, however, are even worse. Over the next four years, housing is to suffer no less than 75% of total government cuts in social spending.
PRIORITY The priority of the government couldn't be clearer when we compare the projected cut-backs with defence spending. At the very time when an extra £ 200 million is to be poured into revamping Britain's so-called "nuclear deterrent", housing is to be sased to une done.
Five years ago, for every f1 spent on defence, 96p was spent on housing. Soon, if the Tories get their way, for every f1 spent on defence that on housing will have shrunk to a miserable 33p.
The price of such neglect is only too clear. It will mean a return to a massive slum problem and a housing shortage of post-war proportions. As Gerald Kauffman (Labour's Environment spokesperson) put it, Hesaltine's policy is "contemptible in its dishonesty and disgraceful in its contents".
The Tories' latest attack, of course, comes on top of already serious inroads into local government housing projects. The government "moratorium" - in force at least until this April - has meant that councils have already been forbidden to build any new houses or make major repairs on existing stock.
Moreover, instructions from central government that they have to sell council homes means that the housing stock that exists is already being seriously depleted.
As a result of the Tories' axe-job to date, over 274,000 building workers have been put out of a job and obliged to join the dole queues. At a time when millions are desperately seeking homes, building workers are deing thrown on the scrap-heap.
The latest cut-back announced by Heseltine will mean a virtual end to public housing programmes as we know them.
Already, it is estimated that:
* 2 million people do not have a place to live in; as a result of his policies.
overcrowded;
"unfit for human habitation";
major repairs.
FIGHT-BACK Heseltine: laughing while millions suffer * 1 million households are officially * 1 million households live in homes * 1 million homes in England need In such a situation - when over two million are queuing to get a council home - the Tories have decided to virtually bring building to a halt.
If the proposals are enforced, any person on a council housing list would have to wait 21 years before being housed. In the meantime, of course, they will be expected to go on living in sub-human conditions -that is, if they have a roof over their heads in the first place.
It is clear that the Tories are not content with axing education and health. They are trying to take away the very roofs over our heads. That is why it is imperative that a fight-back begins The first step would be for all Lab. our councils to refuse to sell off council housing or make any part of their direct labour force redundant. This was one of the major demands passed by the Lambeth conference against the Cuts last December.
A recall conference is being planned for January 17. Such a conterence has to prioritise the fight against the housing disaster the Tories are creating. It is only by Labour councils and public sector unions uniting - and drawing in wider support from the labour movement - that the present policies can be reversed.
Dear Cde,